Types of Medical Malpractice Cases in the South

Patients trust medical professionals to know exactly what they're doing. This trust can be broken. The slightest error could be life or death-or a life-long disability. A physician's error may cause severe physical and emotional trauma.

Wrongful Death and Surgical Error - A jury in North Carolina awarded seven million dollars to the family of a patient who died from medical malpractice injuries to her colon from a routine hysterectomy, according to Outpatient Surgery Magazine. In this case the doctor was found to ignore the patient's irregular blood levels and discharged the patient with a perforated colon. This is just one of many. According to recent statistics, these types of malpractice situations occur up to 40 times each week.

Contamination - Errors are not only caused by a doctor's careless actions. Poor cleanliness in hospitals and medical facilities contributes to the transmission of bacteria and diseases. The trial just began, but two years ago investigations took place at VA hospitals in the south. The studies were looking for contaminated endoscopies that were believed to have exposed 11,000 veterans to potentially fatal diseases and viruses. Veterans may have been exposed to hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV.

Failure to diagnose - Over a six-year period a NC dentist failed to biopsy lesions in one of his patient's mouths. The patient visited an oral surgeon for an extraction and discovered she had oral cancer, which required reconstructive surgery after the removal of teeth and her jawbone. In addition to the surgery she suffered post-operative radiation cancer treatments.